laserkid wrote:In Tenchi Muyu, this was in a dimension and physics defying anime spaceship. No whole planetoids and whole micro eco systems in a shuttle craft for us thought.

We're in a large, heavy vehicle being held up by a levitating rock and planning on growing the plants with mana. Please explain to me how this example is a significant difference.

Edit: Aside from the fact that the anime version can go into space and the specific plants used are sentient trees.

Besides the fact that we're talking about two completely different world settings where 'magic' works differently? And um, we don't use sentient trees.

I already said that was an exception, and even then there is a culture that does (the one we're trying to find).

Catriana wrote:Botany, so far, has been done via the old fashioned method that we see today. Wood sorcery simply accelerates growth. We don't know if it can produce suitable soil for planting, and we'd likely need an earth specialist(or someone skilled in that field, like a former farmer) to determine such a thing. Furthermore, as I said, we would have to acquire enough soil to create a viable greenhouse, in addition to having the proper environment. Certain plants have to be tended a certain way and have certain conditions. Having a greenhouse at the colony would be better, and whenever we stopped in we could deliver seeds from other areas, and restock on herbs and medicines. This would likely require us recording the plant's habitat, so if we did return with something unique it can be utilized.

We have sunlight and (granted, ever-decreasing) space, and can descend for soil and water whenever it's convenient. For a majority of small plants, which most herbs should be, that's really all it takes. People can grow plants in their houses. Many do. Some are starting gardens on the roofs and sides of buildings. It really depends on the person and the plants in question.

Catriana wrote:We cannot accomplish everything because 'magic'. That's not how it works in this world setting. There are a lot of things that require conventional and realistic means to accomplish. But ST would have the final verdict on whether or not a greenhouse on a boat would be feasible. I personally cannot see us being able to craft something large scale on a moving vehicle, but a small habitat for certain types of plants, sure. Regardless, it's something to look into.

No, but we can accomplish many things with it that we normally couldn't with our current level of technology by using it. And the argument wasn't in favor of magic as an excuse for an instant, large-scale garden. But we should be able to use it to make a small one in short order so long as somebody has the affinity and/or a focus, training and materials (because that's how magic works in this setting).

Ash-RH: Eyes peeled and heads on a swivel, Shrikes.

MA: Have I mentioned that I hate fire?

Kale'shido- I would've gone to the Sarghress, like the other exiles, but I fear for my family's safety as much as my friends'.

- I already said we could do something small scale, it just might not be a greenhouse. Goblin also linked to a page which shows that we do have a space, but it looked more like a storage area to me. We MIGHT be able to convert it into a greenhouse, but greenhouses require specific temperatures that I don't think we could meet being on the move.

- I also said I wanted to try and acquire rare herbs, things we don't already have. We likely know what we have will be fine. Rare herbs, those that we find in the wild may or may not have special conditions that a shipboard environment can't meet.

The entire point of my original proposition was to expand on our current stock by going out into the wild and looking for things we do not have or possibly have not encountered for potential study purposes. A greenhouse for those would be great, but as I also said before, I'm going to wait until ST says whether or not this can even be done, otherwise it's a moot point to argue.

“The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend." -Henry David Thoreau

Remember in PtP 1 where we tried to start a farm growing plants from the surface using mana lights and Kern kept saying, "No... no..." and people kept arguing back with "But if we juuuust do it this way...!"

Well, from what I've been able to dig up, having sunlight isn't enough, temperature matters. There is a company that specializes in floating greenhouses, but they're in a specific location and have technology we don't have access to in order to make it work. It states in the article that the climate cannot be too hot or too cold. So while what we currently have is fine for the plants we've brought on board(they're likely all weather/all season plants), we would have to be careful bringing aboard anything we don't know too much about or deduce that it needs a specific temperature to stay alive. I suppose we could just take the plants and study them for as long as we could for medicinal purposes and harvest the seeds until we could get them to a more stable environment.

So, in regards to my initial proposition, I guess we would just have to see what uncommon or rare herbs we can find and cross our fingers. *shrug*

“The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend." -Henry David Thoreau

Actually we do have a few plants that do not require sunlight. Those are Underground mushrooms and mana plants.

A survivalist should not be a pessimist, he should always be positive, happy and enjoying life more than anyone else because he understands that each minute of peace we have is precious and unique, and he never takes it for granted.

There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding concerning why I brought up the topic of herbs/medicines in the first place. I understand we have plants that are likely just fine under the conditions we currently have them in. Fila'sofi is also likely to be a candidate to help them grow and be cultivated.

But my point, the entire purpose of my topic, was involving anything we do not currently have or know about, not what we do have. In regards to this specifically, a greenhouse may or may not be a viable option, as some herbs have certain requirements they need to grow. We are traveling all over the place, including sky islands. Different areas will have natural demands we may or may not be able to meet.

So yes, some may not need sunlight, but would still need a certain temperature to grow. Some may need little sunlight, some may need a lot of sunlight and a constant, specific temperature. If a greenhouse can cover all of those things, that's fine; I am not saying it cannot be done, only that it might not be applicable to what I was aiming for. Please understand I was only talking about expanding our current stock/knowledge on herbs with new things that we might be able to turn into medicine to treat anything that could rise up.

That is why I wanted to wait for ST to make a verdict, as my concerns may be unfounded and it won't matter. I am not fighting anyone on the issue of a greenhouse, just whether or not we could introduce new things into its environment (on a moving vehicle) and it survive. Not only survive, enable us to start to grow more. It is possible that area is already being used as a greenhouse, we'll have to wait and see.

As for the issue of soil, I cannot think of a market in this environment that would have suitable soil(and fertilizer) in stock. Maybe a larger Nal'sarkoth port...but if not we'd either have to find our own while we're out traveling or pick up some when we go back to the colony. If we don't already have some stockpiled (I don't think we did that, though).

Back on point, I would like to know if medical has a lab for doing research on this very subject.

“The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend." -Henry David Thoreau

It can be done but its gonna have to be left at the hands of the city folks back home. Meaning we can buy seeds, find plants and put those in pots with some soil. Bring them back home. Let our folks back home do some mass production of those new products while we are off in a adventure and return and then use the new medicine plants for the next adventure. Beside the winter is approaching so if you wanna do this. It has to be done soon when we land in a forest zone to go grab as many northern plants as possible.

I am not against this idea at all so if you folks can manage to get this side quest done fast we might have time to go on a plant hunt after this. Afterwards we just gotta go slay some would be relic hunters if they find our prize before us and ensure their corpses are left at the hands of them noz so the nals won't consider us as the prime suspects.

A survivalist should not be a pessimist, he should always be positive, happy and enjoying life more than anyone else because he understands that each minute of peace we have is precious and unique, and he never takes it for granted.

Technically, mushrooms are not plants, but fungus, which does not require sunlight at all. The mana plants, we just stumbled upon them when we got to the surface. Also, that room we reserved isn't just solely for preserving any new plant life we find, it's also a storage room of sorts for faunas we discover: plants, animals, etc.

As for the greenhouse idea, I believe it is possible for us to construct such a room on our ship, but we'll have to do extensive modification to our ship. Water, air, rich soil, and sunlight, not a problem. Climate, well, that's why we got heat and ice foci for. With heat/ice foci, we can regulate and maintain a fixed temperature. The Kashyra mims we fought created armors that can regulate temperature across the whole armor (though the did a crappy job at it), we've already reverse engineer this tech and implemented to our own armors. Now, we take this idea and implemented on a larger scale, a whole room.

Now here's the problem in an attempt to put the theory into practice. As I said, we'll have to do extensive modification to our ship, might even have to tear some walls down to make space. Another problem is powering the focis. Let's just say we already programmed enough heat and ice foci to cover a room, how are we going to power them all? Emitting temperature and keeping it at a set level requires a constant flow of mana. It would be way too taxing on us to power such a room by hand 24/7. We'll have to either install a separate power core (a scale down version of our current power core) to power the room, or attach cables from the room to our ship's power core. And there's another problem regarding the plants. Each species of plants thrive in certain conditions, and as Cat pointed out, each plant requires a specific temperature in order to grow. What one environment and climate can help nurture Plant A, maybe harmful to Plant B. If we're growing one specific type of plant, we're good to go. If we're trying to grow a variety, then we may have some difficulties. We either modify more rooms to accommodate different types of plants and let's not go into the mana required to power each rooms. Or we can build miniature greenhouses within one room.

All and all, there's so much details, complications, and things that could go wrong. that it may not be worth the trouble constructing a greenhouse when we could just pick up the faunas we find and take it home to grow on our fields.

=_= This was mostly a venture I was hoping for the healers and any volunteers to do should anyone feel so inclined; it's not a side quest for the whole clan. Certain plants and herbs are all season, so all winter approaching means is that we will not have access to plants/herbs that grow during say, the summer time.

My concern was whether or not we'd be able to keep uncommon or rare wild plants long enough to survive the trip. But that's a micromanaging feature, so perhaps ST will say that as long as it's in a pot and gets sunlight it's good. I have no idea.

I also wanted to do research, to ensure we don't bring back anything that only grows in the area of its origin, and to test out all of the potential medicinal properties the herb can have. That way when we return, we can tell the clan exactly what it is, what is required, its medicinal properties, etc.

It is unlikely we would find wild herbs that would require the use of a larger space than what we already have. We would only need a few samples for study and attempts at preservation.

Guys, this was just a small idea I had and it's being blown out of proportion. We don't need to fix what's broken, we don't need to build a brand new greenhouse if the storage space we have is sufficient. We're not trying to farm, and we are not away from the colony long enough for something large and long term like that to be productive. We will not have that many plants to warrant building something that large, I'm pretty sure that's why the space we have was so small to begin with.

Small habitats would be better in the long run. They would be easier to manage, and as I've said before, we can take anything new that we can keep alive back to the colony and have them cultivate it there. I'm just trying to look up potential research options for medicine, not start a huge project.

I'm sorry if anyone was under the impression that I wanted to grab a huge amount of herbs to bring back to the ship, because that's not at all what I was saying. We won't need a whole stockpile, and we couldn't do that anyway without potentially endangering the plants natural habitat, if I'm not mistaken. I was aiming for something small and confined for the healers to work on.

“The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend." -Henry David Thoreau

Ok look, I think it's fair to say that Cat has a good handle on this, and what can actually be gained from this idea is ultimately up to our GMs. Let's just leave it at that. Cat, I'm sorry for arguing.

Ash-RH: Eyes peeled and heads on a swivel, Shrikes.

MA: Have I mentioned that I hate fire?

Kale'shido- I would've gone to the Sarghress, like the other exiles, but I fear for my family's safety as much as my friends'.

Dalvyserran wrote:The point still stands that we can probably reserve a room for a greenhouse to grow exotic plants we find on our travels. It also serves to get in some training with using wood sorcery for various tasks, imo...

Goods news everyone, we already have a room reserve for plant life, mana bearing and otherwise. Here's the link, fourth panel from the top:

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but what Toruel said to Fila'sofi gives me the impression that Fila has some knowledge of botany, maybe even wood or plant affinity or foci. Just wishful thinking on my part.

Yes, Fila'sofi has a wood affinity. Also I'm totally down for starting a greenhouse side project! We already have the room set aside and it would certainly give our healer and scientist types something to study on our trips to and from various locations, so I say we go for it.